View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoPeter Morrison | Associated Press“I’m not too disappointed,” third-round leader Lee Westwood said after squandering another chance at his first major championship title. “I don’t really get disappointed with golf anymore.”

GULLANE, Scotland — While Phil Mickelson was hoisting the Claret Jug on the 18th green to roars
and applause, Lee Westwood was about 40 yards away in the corner of a press tent, explaining how
yet another major championship got away from him.

“I wanted to be there on the 18th green right now, that’s pretty obvious,” Westwood said,
briefly turning his eyes to a nearby TV screen to see Mickelson parading the trophy.

Westwood began the final round of the British Open with a two-stroke lead. But he shot a
4-over-par 75 to finish four strokes behind Mickelson, tied for third place with Ian Poulter and
Adam Scott.

Westwood has come to live with near misses at golf’s biggest tournaments. This was his eighth
top-three finish in 62 majors and, at 40, he might never have a better chance again.

File this in the same drawer as the British Open at Turnberry in 2009, where he three-putted to
miss out on a playoff, and the 2010 Masters, in which he led after 54 holes.

Never has he had such a cushion going into a final round, but he couldn’t build any momentum and
regularly put himself in trouble. Three plugged lies in bunkers on Nos. 7, 8, and 9 resulted in two
dropped shots, relinquishing his lead, and many of his drives dribbled off the fairways into the
light rough or, even worse, the thick stuff.

Westwood didn’t make a birdie on a back nine he has struggled with all week.

“I wouldn’t have done anything different for breakfast, or carried three markers in the pocket
instead of two,” Westwood said. “I never second-guess myself. So there’s no point in doing it, you
just do what feels right at the time.”

Woods never in contention

Tiger Woods started the final round just two strokes behind Westwood, but his round fell apart
pretty quickly. An ugly three-putt at No. 1 was the start of his misery, and Woods was at 3 over
for the round by the time he walked off the sixth green.

Although he remained on the fringe of contention all day, he never got to the top of the leader
board.

Woods staggered to the finish with a 74, five shots behind Mickelson.

It didn’t even seem that close because of a dismal performance with the putter. Woods needed 33
swipes with the short stick to get around the course. Only six of the 84 players used it more.

“I had a hard time adjusting to the speeds,” Woods said. “They were much slower today, much
softer. I don’t think I got too many putts to the hole.”

More misery for Scott

Adam Scott’s collapse in the final round wasn’t nearly as spectacular as it was a year ago. The
end result still was the same.

For the second year in a row, Scott held the lead on the back nine; for the second year in a
row, he left without his name on the Claret Jug.

Even the green jacket he won in between at the Masters couldn’t ease the sting of this one.

“I think the disappointing thing is this one I felt I wasted a little bit,” Scott said. “I would
have liked to be in at the end and no one was, actually. It’s a shame.”

No one was because Mickelson closed so strongly, he likely would have won the Open no matter
what Scott or any of his fellow competitors did. But three straight bogeys on the back nine sealed
the fate of this year’s Masters champion, eliminating him from contention before he even had a shot
at making a late run.

“I let a great chance slip, I felt, during the middle of the round and that’s disappointing,”
Scott said. “Had I played a little more solid in the middle of that back nine I could have had a
chance coming in.”